Laoise Ní Ghríofa

(b. 1999, Galway, Irland)

Ag faire orm, ag faire ort, 2024
Watching Me, Watching You

Aon dó capall is bó, 2024
One Two Horse and Cow (from Irish children’s nursery rhyme)

Sláinte Banríon na Mara, 2024
Cheers Queen of the Sea
Beads, textiles, and acrylic on canvas

(W)rath, 2024
(A play on the English word ‘wrath’ and the Irish word for a ring fort, ‘rath’)
Installation, wood and ceramic tiles

Laoise Ní Ghríofa’s work explores the relationship between colour, material, and language. Through her bright paintings, she creates spaces that invite the viewer to engage and be a part of the work. She explores imagery through reduction and colour, focusing on shape, bodies, and clothing, and how these normal, everyday things can be transformed into their own stories. As a native Irish and English speaker, she plays with language through the titles of her works.

Her current body of work takes inspiration mainly from Irish mythology and haute couture. This work explores her own memories and relationship to growing up in Ireland and is a dialogue between what she remembers and how she relays this onto the canvas. The installation and paintings create a space that the viewer can enter and be a part of. Her work allows the viewer to create their own imaginative space within the boundaries of her work.

Interview with Laoise Ní Ghríofa